


in dearth, in excess

by hypocorism



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Ambiguous Relationships, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Secret Marriage, person pov change but it's all kuzy, your author is back upon their bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-20 10:25:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16135307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypocorism/pseuds/hypocorism
Summary: "That stick in your hand is tracing mansionsIn which we shall always be together."-Anna Akhmatova





	in dearth, in excess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blushingsweet (sunflowered)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowered/gifts).



> EDIT: come talk to me at selkienicke (hockey sideblog) or riverannan (main blog) on tumblr! (aka please talk to me about this pairing!!!)
> 
> aka the winona ryder/keanu reeves 'oh wait WERE we actually married this entire time' kuzy/sema au that no one but me wanted but you will hopefully enjoy! I adore this pairing and absolutely jumped at the chance to write them, so thank you for that!!
> 
> also, [here is a sort of impressionist painting of the fic, in musical form](https://open.spotify.com/user/ew7urpqs0vz9nnk5selku185n/playlist/1blreY1OwkiepA47VWufdr?si=BO7tpY4YTuG3jexeGjC3Yg), (order important but not essential)
> 
> potential warning: I've kept the irl age difference (about 8 years) but it's not a major part of the story, and there is no underage romantic or sexual content, just some babykuz pining. the bulk of the fic takes place while they're both adults.

Sometimes, you wonder if it's possible to know someone for too long. If a person, like a place, can sink into you and become permanent. Always there. Always not-there. In you, deeper than bone or muscle.

That's not where this story starts.

—-

Kuzy wakes up to a series of increasingly distressed emoji-filled texts from Alex, and a message from Nicke. The message is about as comprehensible as Alex’s emoji-speak, as it’s mostly Swedish yelling and Kuzy only really picks out the swear words and the cold, crisp, “Call me,” in English at the end. Well, and that it’s something about Sasha.

 _what did u do to piss nicke off_ , he texts Sasha.

 _ah so you’re awake then_ , Sasha texts back a few minutes later, which means he knows but has decided, for Sasha reasons, to be unhelpful.

He calls Nicke, but it goes straight to voicemail.

 _can’t talk, nickes hungover_ , Nicke’s phone texts him, in Russian. Kuzy rolls his eyes and gets up to make breakfast. Whatever everyone’s bothered about, it can wait until later.

He doesn’t exactly forget to check his phone, but if he glances at it a little less throughout the day…well that’s not the worst thing. A pissed off Nicke is a lot to deal with, and that’s without introducing Sasha’s nitroglycerin into the whole equation. He’s not supposed to have his phone on set, anyway.

“You okay?” Tom says, sidling up to Kuzy at craft services with two cups of coffee in his hands. Kuzy gives a kind of wordless grumble and takes the coffee. He’s never worked with Tom before this movie, although he’s seen his highlight reel and even liked parts of it. Kuzy doesn’t watch a lot of movies, especially splashy big-budget ones with aggressively handsome leads running around half-dressed and performing improbable acrobatics. (He did make an exception for the one where Tom fought a cephalopod space overlord, because Kuzy can appreciate some good absurdist humor.)

“Didn’t sleep good,” he says. Tom looks skeptical, and Kuzy pokes him in the side, laughing a little. “You try method acting, now?”

“I can be concerned about a co-worker!” Tom says, flushing slightly.

“Worry about Dima,” Kuzy says, jerking a thumb at the first assistant camera. “He scared off another production assistant yesterday.”

Dima rolls his eyes, grabbing the pastry Kuzy is eyeing. Kuzy debates grabbing it right back.

“She got a better job than dealing with you,” Dima says.

“No better job,” Kuzy says. As if Dima hasn’t worked on three of Kuzy’s last five projects, including the one that was mostly just the two of them running around the city with a handheld camera and interviewing street performers.

“I quit next,” Dima threatens, looking at Kuzy. Kuzy uses his slight distraction to snatch the pastry. Crowing with victory, he stuffs the entire thing into his mouth. “Good luck with that one,” Dima says to Tom, before wandering off to terrorize the interns.

It’s not a bad day. Kuzy doesn’t usually star in big-budget movies any more than he watches them, and the combination of chaotic sets and repetitive shooting to try and get so many elements to cohere isn’t his favorite kind of work. Nicke, his agent, insists he do one every once in a while. “Keep your name recognition up so people will actually watch that garbage you call passion projects,” as he so supportively put it.

This movie at least sounds like it will be entertaining. He’s playing a slightly ditzy pop star who witnesses a crime and then has to hire a bodyguard to protect him while he’s trying to bring the criminals to justice. Law enforcement is useless and the pop star has to do some investigating himself, much to the chagrin of his by-the-book bodyguard. Naturally, he and the bodyguard fall in love. (Nicke might tease him about only being willing to play manic pixie dream girls, but Kuzy knows his niche. What’s the point of playing a character if they aren’t, at least a little bit, who you want to, are, dread to be?)

“You’re frowning again,” Tom points out, while they’re waiting for the cameras to be reset.

“Agent trouble,” Kuzy says, this time.

“Oh no. Is Nicke okay?” Tom looks genuinely worried now. Shit, Kuzy had forgotten they knew each other.

“He’s fine,” Kuzy says. He makes up a story about Nicke having problems with a copier delivery and an extremely flaky assistant, and resolves to check his phone at the next opportunity.

—-

SEVENTEEN

You watch him from the window, most nights.

It’s mostly coincidence, that you ended up living right next to each other. These houses are close to the set, and the kind of nice-but-not-too-nice that steady work (but only for the year, maybe) means. Alex is somewhere closer and louder; his first starring role and only two months in but everyone knows who people are watching for.

It goes like this: the sun and moon orbiting each other (loudalive, brightdarting, cleversharp, fastslow). It goes like this: sometimes Sasha might be hard to see, the afterflash of bigger, louder Alex. It might be, but not for you.

It’s not your first acting job, or your second, or your third, but it’s the first that feels like something that could catch. You’re the annoying kid brother (again), this time tagalong to rising RSL hockey star Alex. There’s a love interest and a handful of teammates you haven’t noticed, your cookie cutter parents, a coach with a dark secret that the writers won’t tell any of you, and him.

Sasha’s the mysterious best friend, a role that would be too cliche to watch if it weren’t for, well, him. His dimples, his big hands, the way his face darts through emotion so quickly and so openly that it loops back around to unreadable. His easy laugh, the way he skates like he was born to it.

His leather jacket would be too big for you, probably. You line it up against your shoulders in your head, and like it no matter how it fits.

You have a lot of time to do this, because most of your time on set is watching hockey, and looking impressed, and trying to talk Alex into taking you to parties.

You have a lot of time to do this, because you don’t sleep much here. The air is different, heavier, and the buildings don’t feel solid enough. He doesn’t sleep much, either. Usually, you know this because the window across from yours is the only other one still lit up. Sometimes, you know this because he goes out at night, mostly alone. Once or twice Alex is with him, and those nights you go read in your bedroom instead.

You’re not sure what makes him look up. The light’s on, sure, but it’s pretty much always on. He does look up, though, right at you. He smiles and waves, and you fight the urge to duck out of sight and pretend it didn’t happen. It gets worse, though, because he beckons you down, and you have to scramble to get your shoes and keys without looking like you’re scrambling.

It’s cold enough outside that you wish you’d stopped for a jacket, but you can bear the cold more easily than the embarrassment of ducking back inside.

“Eduard,” Sasha calls you by your character’s name, smirking. You laugh, try to look embarrassed, and mostly just feel pleased.

“What are you doing out here? It’s the middle of the night.” You almost wince the second the words are out of your mouth. You sound so _young_ , like a kid with a bedtime.

He doesn’t tease you, though, just shrugs. “Thought I’d go skating. Want to come?”

You hesitate. Not because you don’t want to go, but, “I don’t have skates.”

“You can borrow a pair.”

He flops down on the curb, pulling a zipped up duffle bag toward him. He unzips it, rummaging around for a minute, and then pulling out two pairs of skates. He presents one to you with a flourish, smiling up at you through the hair just falling over his eyes.

“Thanks,” you say, dropping down to sit next to him and starting to unlace your shoes. The skates are too big, so you roll your socks up and stick them in the toes. You wobble a little when you stand up, and he laughs and reaches out to steady you.

“Come on, Zhenya. You can fall as much as you want as long as you do it forward.”

With that, he’s off, leaving his shoes, bag, and jacket abandoned in the tiny strip of grass by his house. He swoops down the road, slewing around to skate backwards and beckon you out into the night. You hesitate for a second, and then put on the jacket. If he laughs at you about it, there’s no one else to see, and it’s cold enough that you have an easy excuse.

You take a deep breath, and follow.

You’ve skated some. More on ice than on pavement, but enough to be reasonably steady. Well, reasonably steady when you’re in skates that fit, and it’s light out, and you’re wearing appropriate protective gear because your mother would kill you otherwise.

It’s difficult to be reasonably steady around Sasha, even with all other things held equal, and you barely make it five minutes before you trip over an uneven square of pavement and crash forward. It’s not a bad fall, but you do scrape up your palms.

Sasha laughs, and skids to a stop next to you. “Here,” he says, holding out a hand. “Hold onto me till you’ve got your feet back under you.” He doesn’t mention the jacket, just pushes the cuffs up your wrists a little, gentle.

He tows you backward down the empty street, and it’s not that fast but you feel like you’re flying, like you can’t breathe from it. Sometimes all you want in the world is someone to look straight at you. You see a lot. Most people do not see back, but Sasha is not most people.

“There you go,” he says, still smiling at you, but he doesn’t drop your hands.

Steady feels a long way away.

—-

NOW

The next opportunity to check his phone turns out to be after they’ve finished shooting for the day. The wait is probably a good thing. Nicke’s continual (although unfortunately vague) stream of texts has gone from cranky hungover morning to just his usual terse self by afternoon (presumably thanks to being fed, coddled, and given painkillers by Alex).

 _you still didnt say what im supposed to call you about_ , Kuzy texts him. Mostly it’s just “when are you finished with work” and some disapproving and unflattering statements about Kuzy’s decisions. That could be anything from ‘Nicke is annoyed because Kuzy turned down that superhero movie when they wouldn’t give him a robot dog sidekick’ to ‘Alex tried to play some sort of poorly executed practical joke and it’s somehow Kuzy’s fault for encouraging him’ to ‘Nicke’s assistant Andre accidentally deleted his entire Google Calendar (again),’ which doesn’t strictly have anything to do with Kuzy’s decisions but it did make Nicke awfully fussy until Christian from IT managed to sort it out.

There is very little delay in Nicke responding, which bodes ill for Kuzy’s evening. _Are you home?_

_almost. 5 min_

_Get on Skype when you get there._

_maybe i have plans_ , Kuzy texts back. He could have plans. Dima’s always fun to pester when he’s viewing the dailies.

_Cancel them._

Kuzy sighs and puts his phone back in his pocket, not bothering to argue. He’s sort of tired of not knowing what’s going on.

It’s just Nicke when the call connects, Alex is nowhere to be seen. That’s either a good or a very bad sign.

“Evgeny,” Nicke says seriously. Very bad, then.

“Nicky,” Kuzy says. “What, I forget to sign some papers?” Nicke ignores this.

“You’re married?!” Nicke says, somehow managing to sound angry, incredulous, and disapproving all at once. It’s too bad he never took to acting. He’s very good at scolding and that’s a marketable skill.

Also, Kuzy is going to murder Alex.

He debates denying it, but there’s not much of a point. “Maybe married,” he says. Nicke is either just staring at him or the Skype call has frozen. Either way. Kuzy shrugs. “You can watch the episode.”

“I watched the episode,” Nicke snarls.

“Can’t imagine that helped with the hangover.”

“How do you not know if you’re married?” Nicke asks. “How do you not investigate that? How do you not look into that immediately, let alone wait six years?”

It was seven, last month, but Kuzy doesn’t point this out. “I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Never came up.”

“Never…” Nicke sighs and shakes his head. “Fine. I’ll have Andre look into it.”

“Why?” It’s definitely Nicke just staring at him this time. Kuzy can see his eye twitching slightly. “Doesn’t matter, does it? It’s Sasha. He’s not going to murder me for life insurance or something.”

Nicke pauses, face going carefully blank. “Have you talked to him about this?”

“About his plans to murder me?” Kuzy tries joking. Nicke’s face starts to take a truly worrying turn into the paternal concern realm and Kuzy backpedals. He thinks about asking if Nicke has tried talking to Sasha, but he knows the answer. Nicke is excellent at tracking people down, but Sasha is better at avoiding confrontation than…anyone probably. “I didn’t know there was anything to talk about before now.” Nicke opens his mouth, looking like he has rather a lot to say on that subject, but he closes it again and just shakes his head.

“You should talk to him about it. At least find out for sure where you stand.”

That stings a little. “I talk to him all the time,” Kuzy says, a little sharp. “I know where we are.”

“Well, find out if you’re also legally married, then,” Nicke says, rolling his eyes, and Kuzy feels a little more on familiar ground.

“I’ll figure it out,” Kuzy says, sort of maybe honestly. “Don’t worry, it won’t affect work. No bad publicity even.”

Nicke lets him pretend that that’s at all what Nicke’s concerned about. Or that Kuzy has ever cared about publicity of any kind. “Next time you go somewhere you don’t speak the language and act in a maybe legally binding marriage ceremony, at least call me first,” Nicke says tartly.

Kuzy laughs, and rolls his eyes. “I’ll see you for dinner Friday.” Nicke makes a noise of acknowledgement and ends the call.

Kuzy sighs and sits back in his chair. He thinks about texting Sasha, but he needs a little more information first.

 _what the fuck were you two doing last night_ , he texts Alex.

_you talk to nicke???_

_yea_

_im sorry!! we were playing drinking game and it just slipped out!_

Kuzy sighs. He doesn’t ask, “Why do you and Nicke even bother going to networking events when you just stay wrapped up in each other the whole time.” He also doesn’t ask, “When are you going to replace alcohol and being glued to each other's sides with an honest discussion about emotional intimacy,” because if he had an answer to that question he wouldn’t be fielding cross-country Skype calls and dealing with a maybe-legal seven year marriage.

 _have you talked to sasha_ he says instead. There’s a long pause, and Kuzy gets up and starts poking through the refrigerator for dinner. He knows the answer, anyway.

—-

NINETEEN

The line of his body against your side feels like drowning, like he’s the only solid thing in the whole world. The way the room is spinning and the music is so loud you can feel it at the base of your spine doesn’t help.

Season Three has been a mess from confusing start to downright bizarre finish, ending up in some labyrinthine kidnapping plot that has you and Sasha undercover in a foreign country trying to pick up the trail. Alex has spent a lot of time shirtless and in various states of bondage, so hopefully that will make up for whatever the writers are doing with the B plot.

“My saviors,” Alex yells, crashing into your side in an attempt at hugging both of you at once. Sasha laughs and shoves at his shoulder, and you fight the urge to duck out from between them and back away.

“Not yet,” Sasha says.

In a blatant and probably unsuccessful bid to avoid cancellation, they’ve wrapped the season on a cliffhanger. You and Sasha, forced to quickly get married to infiltrate a shady couples retreat you think the kidnappers have ties to (or, more accurately, because someone’s cousin’s husband is the caretaker and they could film in the huge cathedral cheaply), just manage to finish their wedding ceremony when someone bursts into the church offscreen.

“You’ll figure it out,” Alex says. “Come do shots!”

Sasha looks at you, questioning, and Alex is still laughing in your other ear, and you nod in agreement just to get a little air.

The music gets louder, and Sasha’s breath gets warmer against your neck. Alex is exuberant, trying to dance with everyone, and Sasha is slumped against you sleepy-eyed, and you feel briefly but perfectly happy.

The night keeps going, though, and Alex starts to get quiet and clingy like he does when it goes from late to early. He’s wrapped around Sasha from behind, and talking to him too quietly for you to hear, especially when you’re doing your best to look the other way. Sasha keeps laughing, like he always does when Alex talks, and he’s still next to you but his weight is toward the back of the chair instead of tipped to the side.

You don’t drink that much, because it thins your skin more than you’re comfortable with. It draws emotion to the surface, makes you too easy to read.

“Too hot in here,” you say, to no one in particular, and wander out into the alley behind the bar that the show has sort of but not entirely booked.

You lean against the wall, looking up at the night sky for the lack of anything better to do. The few stars you can pick out are dim and distant, leaving a mostly unrelieved blue-black once you ignore the noise from the city lights below. The moon looks small in the sky, remote and half-heartedly orange. You think that-

The back door of the bar opens again, and noise spills out and pulls you back down to earth. You turn to go back inside, not particularly eager to make awkward conversation over a declined cigarette, but it’s Sasha. He moves toward you, and you can’t tell if it seems slowed down because you’re drunk, or because he is.

“Getting into trouble?” he asks, leaning against the wall next to you.

“Just hot,” you mutter, looking back up at the sky and trying to think about anything other than the needle-sharp awareness of his body next to yours. “Where’s Alex?”

“Oh,” he grins at you, “Galina is holding onto him for a bit,”

You roll your eyes at this. Galina is your on-screen mother, and she dotes on Alex almost as much as her character does. Still.

“Think he’d rather you hold onto him,” you say, not entirely intending for it to be out loud. Sasha just laughs. He looks up, and the moon brightens for you, having his eyes on it.

“Last season, probably,” he says, after a minute of silence.

“Probably.” You turn your head towards him, slow and still mostly up against the wall. He keeps looking up, and you can feel the arch of his neck and the way shadows pool at the base of his throat like the shock of boiling water against your skin. “I’m leaving soon, anyway,” you say, stumbling forward into intimacy. He blinks, a long slow lowering of lashes, and then nods.

“You’re too good for this, Zhenya,” he says, smile tugging a little at the corner of his mouth but tone serious. He’s still looking up. It feels like a dismissal.

“So are you,” you say, and it’s honest but also not what you mean. What you mean is something like: that distance you just put between us, take it back.

He looks at you now, face hard to read in the close darkness of the alley and the conversation. “Text me after your first big movie,” he says.

Later, usually when you can’t sleep, you think about this moment. In your head, you say all kinds of things. Big things (you ask him to come with you, you ask him what keeps him awake at night, you ask him what he wants out of life, you ask him if he’s ever thought of you as anything at all). Little things (you ask him to go find somewhere still open and eat breakfast before you stumble back to your empty houses, you ask him whether he remembers the first time you met, you ask him what he’s doing tomorrow).

Later, again and again, you think, _I’m in love with you. I’m in love with you. I’m in love with you and I don’t know how to bear it. Not alone._

“Okay,” you say, and let him go back inside.

—-

NOW

 _we should probably talk about this_ , Kuzy texts Sasha, mostly because Nicke is going to be let loose from his flight in approximately an hour and he’s been making increasingly specific threats to ‘handle’ things over the past two days.

 _okay_ , Sasha texts back. Kuzy blinks down at his phone, slightly surprised. Maybe Nicke’s been pestering him, too. It’s not outside the realm of possibility, although he usually confines his bossiest self to Kuzy and Alex. Then again, imagining Nicke and Sasha alone together is a bit like imagining what your cat gets up to when you’re not home. Who knows what the two of them are like, in sole combination.

Kuzy is considering what to say next when a second text comes through. _earliest i can be there is tuesday_. Kuzy must stare blankly at his phone a little too long, because _four days from now, i mean_ comes next.

 _you don’t need to come into town we can just talk on skype_ Kuzy types, and then erases. _tuesday works_ , he says instead.

Later that night, Sasha sends him an email with his flight information attached. Kuzy prints it out and puts it on the refrigerator

—-

TWENTY

Being lonely in New York is a lot like being lonely in Moscow, only warmer. It’s also less like home, which makes it easier in some ways. You can’t forget where you are and slip out of time in the same way. You can’t forget how much wider the distance between you and everyone you love has gotten. It makes the loneliness feel more like a choice, like something you could reverse, if you wanted.

There are other benefits. You aren’t Alex’s little shadow anymore, although the well-funded tightly-written spinoff show Alex is starring in now is starting to get him a bit of international buzz. Sasha isn’t on it, but he’s always in the background of promo shoots, usually trying to duck out of the frame. It makes you inexplicably angry; you aren’t entirely sure why. Because he didn’t come with you? Because he didn’t ask you to stay? You look at his number in your phone a lot, and don’t text it.

You still feel like there’s too much time, even when you’re running from audition to audition and picking up shifts at the diner a block away whenever you can. There’s always too much time in your head.

(You wonder if he would have come along if Alex had been the one asking, if Alex weren't still back in Russia. You wonder if that’s why he stayed. It certainly wasn’t for acting.)

Sometimes when you can’t sleep at night, you watch old episodes, play the DVDs you brought over with you because they weren’t distributed in the U.S. More accurately, you watch him.

You were eight when you met him for the first time. You don’t know if he remembers it, you never asked. It was some kind of audition, nothing certain. They hadn’t even picked an age for sure yet, with kids as young as seven and old as sixteen all corralled in the same big waiting room. You don’t remember the part, just that it was cold, and that your mother had you repeat your lines back to her whenever you started fidgeting too much.

He was one of the older boys there, at sixteen. (He would move on to bigger and better things by the end of the year.) Most of the rest of them were clustered in the corner, trying to look too old to talk to the kids and too cool to talk to each other and failing at both.

Sasha was flopped on the floor, chin propped in one hand, pulling faces at a crying seven year old to try and get him to laugh. You had time to wonder why he didn’t look nervous, and then got pulled into repetition number five and got distracted trying to listen for your name.

There was a little hallway off the audition room, just long enough for the next three up to stand. From the front, if you leaned forward a little, you could see whoever went right before you. You gathered this because the boy two in front of you nearly toppled over he was leaning so far. Sasha had to grab the back of his shirt to steady him, and got a glare for wrinkling it in thanks.

Sasha, out of pride, you thought at the time, did not stoop to the indignity of leaning. You, although steadier and with a better grasp of gravity than your predecessor, absolutely did.

You’ve seen Sasha act many times, both over the three years the two of you spent on the same show and by tracking down his other projects, but nothing was quite like the first.

You still can’t really pinpoint what it is, what about him captured your attention so completely and so quickly, what it is that no one else can ever match. There is something coiled about him, that gathers slowly and accumulates over time, before springing out in a sudden burst of emotion. Something that rewards waiting, observing carefully. Something that almost tilted you off your feet that day, in spite of your grip on the corner of the hall. Something like this: after the emotion breaks, you can go back and see it build. You can see it constructed on his face, grown in his body.

(He got that part, of course, and it was the one film you saw in theatres that year.)

There are surface things, yes, how expressive his face is, the range of feelings he can communicate so easily, the way he can move himself, the push-pull of the control and release of his body, but none of that is quite it.

Maybe it's just this: Sasha acts like he loves it. Like it’s the breath in him. Like he's becoming alive with it, being born into it, again and again. It doesn't matter if he's at an open call audition or on an expensive set, if he's barely in frame or the focus of the entire audience. He slips into character like a long slow dive into cool water in the summer, like the slightly shocking pleasure of it against your skin. It doesn't look like work, like the elaborate contortion of less accomplished actors. It doesn't look like becoming, but like being and having been.

Sasha picks up and sheds characters so easily it draws you in closer, obsessed with finding the secret center, the truth of him buried at the heart. And then, ultimately, you recognize that maybe that's part of it, too. That all these shed selves are pieces of him, rough imitations of all the ways he has hurt and loved and raged at life. That, at the core, Sasha is a million brilliant facets and you could stare into him forever.

You watch him, shimmering through the fringes of the scene, effortless and smooth as it works itself to overwrought climax.

Sometimes he seems like a pearl: remote and cold and worth the pressure of an ocean on your back. Always, it astonishes you the way he is cast down, again and again. You are ashamed of the gracelessness of the world.

You want him with you, but more than that you want him to be appreciated. To be marveled at. You don’t want him to be content working as cheap filler and background characters when he should be the star. You don’t want him trailing behind, forever unacknowledged and unlauded.

Most of the time, it feels terrifyingly intimate, that you can love someone so much and still be able to speak to them, to be looked at by them.

So you don’t text him, not yet.

—-

NOW

“Did Nicke tell you to check up on me?” Kuzy says, after they’re seated. Alex shrugs, easy like Alex is always easy.

“Nicke worries about you,” he says, not answering the question. “How’s the movie going?”

“It’s fine,” Kuzy says suspiciously, but Alex doesn’t push. They talk about everything but Sasha: how work is going, tentative awards show plans, Nicke’s assistant’s ridiculously dramatic love life, the food.

It’s nice.

This reminder of the marriage thing has thrown Kuzy off his equilibrium a little. He’s gotten used to the rhythm of the present, the way they all relate to each other now. He’s gotten used to talking to Sasha all the time, about everything and nothing. He’s gotten used to Alex as he is now: more settled, taking on serious roles, calmer and happier than he’s ever been. He’s gotten used to Nicke, and Dima, to being surrounded by a group of people he likes and admires and gets along with.

It’s not entirely pleasant, thinking about how recent all of that is. Thinking about for how long and how deeply Kuzy was lonely. Thinking about how hard he tried to hold on to that loneliness, how long it took him to trust anyone with any kind of emotional honesty.

Alex is watching him, and Kuzy realizes he’s been silent for a while.

“Why’d you have to tell Nicke,” Kuzy says, not really a question. 

Alex winces slightly, and sighs. “It’s been a long time,” he says, not really an answer, but Kuzy knows what he means.

Kuzy isn’t twenty anymore, or seventeen, or eight, and Sasha is a person just like anyone else, not a miracle.

“Still gonna be annoyed for a while,” Kuzy mutters, and Alex laughs.

—-

BETWEEN

It’s a different kind of missing someone, going from it being easy and everyday to see them to it taking effort. You expected to miss Sasha but are surprised, a little, at how much you miss Alex. You have no idea how he hears about it (you suspect both of your mothers are involved), but he calls to congratulate you the night you hear you’ve landed your first role in the U.S.

He doesn’t stop, either. Alex keeps on calling you and texting you through the few sulky months where you try to create a little distance, and in the end it’s easier to just give up and acknowledge that you do, actually, love him quite a lot.

Alex fits in Moscow in a way you never did, leaping easily from spinoff show to hugely popular movie and picking up a grumpy Swedish agent he promptly falls in love with somewhere along the way. You know this, because Alex has always been loud about loving people, generous and unstinting with it. You don’t push him about it, because he doesn’t push you about Sasha, but it's nice, anyway, to be in the same boat.

In the end it’s not your first big movie that makes you push through your reluctance and residual sense of awe and actually text Sasha. It’s an absolutely hideous pair of inline skates with HOCKEY stamped in neon green letters on the side, and your inability to continue living in a world where he hasn’t seen and laughed at them.

 _you get them???_ he texts back, an hour later. You send back a second picture, one of you wearing the skates this time.

Life keeps going.

Your second movie, an indie comedy about vampires that mostly involves you popping out to deliver punch lines and then fading back into the background, gets unexpectedly popular. You hire Alex’s agent, mostly because ever since he’s relocated to the U.S. he keeps earnestly telling both of you how much you’ll get along and trying to start group chat threads that are mostly Alex sending everyone Russian cat memes at three in the morning.

Nicke is a good agent, for all he complains about how picky you are with jobs. Alex is also right; you do get along.

You meet Dima, who’s brilliant with a camera and is easy to talk into things. You meet Marcus, and work on one of your favorite projects of all time: a travel and food show where the two of you go to random bed and breakfasts around the country with various elaborate backstories. You review them according to an ever-shifting list of criteria including: hauntedness, how many people believed your backstory of the week (Record high: two best friends pretending to not be in love with each other. Record low: cult leaders trying to recruit), number of windows someone could theoretically fall out of, presence of residential animals, and quantity of available food.

Sasha resurfaces at twenty-nine in a small but critically-acclaimed film about a junior hockey coach, and then in a series of movies that no one except you and Alex seem to watch. Both you and Alex try to talk him into doing a project with one or both of you. He doesn’t say no outright, but it also never happens.

Your life is different in a lot of ways: fuller, happier, richer. You have friends you love and colleagues you like working with and freedom in a career you always wanted and have worked tirelessly to have. You aren’t alone, anymore.

You want him just as much.

You talk every day, texting most of the time and wandering around each other's apartments on Skype when you can sort out the time difference. He spends a lot of time doing community theatre workshops, getting paid barely anything and lighting up with happiness when he talks about the kids who show up. You tell him about the auditions you really care about, about what you’re listening to, you text him when you can’t sleep and call him when you suddenly, desperately need to hear someone who sounds like home.

You don't want to be what he settles for, but, fuck, you would be. Maybe you are. He doesn’t mention anyone else.

You still have his leather jacket, and the careful horde of his whole acting career on an external hard drive, and his voice echoing around your head, and the wildly joyful handful of weeks each year you spend back in Russia.

You still have Sasha, your Polaris, your moon, your first and most consistent love, besides acting. You still crave the steadiness he brings out in you, his hands sure and dependable, pulling you forward into the dark. There is something still about him, and you are constant motion, drawn to stillness. The burnblur of life is too much for you, most of the time. Loving him softens the edges.

You would drown for him, and in him, but you can never quite bring yourself to say as much.

—-

NOW

“Zhenya,” Sasha yells, running right at Kuzy and slamming into him, too hard. Kuzy laughs, a half-punched out sound, and hugs him back. Sasha pulls back after a minute, studying him. “You look good,” he says. “Happy.”

Kuzy can feel himself turning red, and doesn’t know what to say in reply to this that isn’t embarrassing, so he busies himself picking up Sasha’s discarded bags. “Alex wanted to come but he’s shooting tonight,” Kuzy says. This is true and not-true; he didn’t tell Alex Sasha was coming into town.

“I’ll see him later,” Sasha says, not bothered. He takes one of the bags back and follows Kuzy out of the airport and into the parking garage, speaking in rapid Russian the whole time. He’s tired and buzzing with it, skipping from a story about going through customs to a half-summary of the movie he was watching on the plane. Kuzy guides them to the car and makes the occasional noise to show he’s listening.

He is listening, but he’s also a little dizzy with it, having Sasha here. Close enough to hear him without distortion, close enough they’re breathing the same air, close enough to touch, close enough to-

“Where are we going?” Sasha asks, once they’re out of airport traffic. “Dinner?”

“We can if you want,” Kuzy says. He doesn’t glance over because he’s a little afraid he won’t be able to stop looking. “Thought you might be tired, want to go right to sleep.”

Sasha makes a noise, moving around a bit in the seat. “We should eat, plane food is terrible.”

Kuzy laughs. “Okay, we eat then.”

They stop for takeout and go back to Kuzy’s apartment. Perhaps it’s a little selfish, but Kuzy isn’t ready to share Sasha just yet, even with strangers at a restaurant. Besides, this way they can eat tangled up together on the couch.

Sasha falls asleep approximately five minutes after stealing half of Kuzy’s lo mein. He grumbles a little when Kuzy shifts him so he’s lying with his head on a pillow, but doesn’t wake up. Kuzy covers him with a blanket, and turns off the light so he doesn’t have to fight the temptation to sit and stare.

—-

Sasha is awake and dressed in clean clothes when Kuzy wakes up the next morning.

It’s too early, and Kuzy still has a pillow crease on his cheek, and Sasha in the sunlight stuns him a little. He fumbles for the coffee maker, and lets Sasha laugh at the way he’d stopped and stared in the middle of the room.

“You forget I’m here, Zhenya?”

“Little bit,” Kuzy lies, laughing a little himself. You have to, when Sasha laughs.

“That’s okay,” Sasha says. “I’ll be a little mouse today. Just tuck me in your pocket and take me with you.”

Kuzy snorts, and then what Sasha is saying actually sinks in. “Oh,” Kuzy says, “I don’t have to go in today. We can do whatever. Tourist stuff, if you want.”

“Oh,” Sasha looks a little disappointed.

“Or we can go visit the set,” Kuzy hears himself say, and fights the urge to cover his own mouth. He needs to stop talking before coffee.

Sasha looks happy again, though, so going to visit the set it is.

Unfortunately, they run into Dima almost immediately.

“Ah, Kuzya, you’re here,” Dima says. He’s trying to look merely happy and not alight with unholy glee, but Dima is not a very good actor. Kuzy possibly should not have picked yesterday to fuck with his lens caps, but he thought he’d have at least twenty-four hours off set for Dima to cool down.

Kuzy sincerely considers claiming they’re just leaving (who knows what diabolical schemes lurk behind that grin), but Sasha has already wandered toward the action and Kuzy can’t exactly ditch him.

“Just stopping by,” Kuzy says.

“You didn’t say Sasha was in town,” Dima says, and Kuzy deeply regrets every picture he has ever shared.

“Spontaneous trip,” Kuzy says. “He’s working on a movie.”

Dima nods, eyes tracking Sasha around the set. “Well, since you’re here,” he starts.

“Not here,” Kuzy protests. “Like a ghost. No one sees me.”

“It’s the perfect time to re-shoot that rainstorm scene,” Dima finishes, ignoring the interruption.

“Tom’s not here,” Kuzy says, just as Tom’s head pops around the corner of the hall.

“They said you wanted me?” Tom says to Dima. “Oh, hi Kuzy! I didn’t realize you were here today.”

“I’m not here,” Kuzy says again. He contemplates putting Dima in a headlock, but Dima has anticipated retaliation and moved partly behind Tom’s obnoxiously large body.

“What’s going on?” Sasha asks, wandering back over. Tom starts introducing himself, and Dima (un)helpfully hops right in to translate, so Kuzy can’t even be spared some embarrassment by Sasha’s limited English.

The rainstorm scene, naturally, involves the pop star and his bodyguard being inexplicably stranded in a beautiful and deeply romantic gazebo by a surprise change in the weather. It’s finicky and they’re probably going to have to re-dub all the spoken parts in post production, but the main issue currently is that keeping clothes artfully wet in the same way long enough to film under hot stage lights is a mostly unwinnable battle.

Dima is nothing if not tenacious, a trait Kuzy appreciates most not-right-now times, and the scene does need to be re-shot, and he and Tom are both on set with some time to kill, so.

“Fine,” Kuzy sighs.

Acting isn’t something that makes Kuzy nervous, particularly. It hasn’t been for a long time. He’s used to being in front of cameras, on stage, in rehearsals, having to hop in and out of character. He’s used to the way it settles his mind, focuses him in a way few other things do. Acting isn’t necessarily what he would call peaceful, it’s a lot of work physically and mentally, but it’s work that he is good at. It’s work he is strong in, and confident in, and he relishes the way he can sink into it and tune out the rest of the world.

Usually.

Having Sasha watch him act is something entirely different; something Kuzy hasn’t had to do for a long time. Kuzy is well aware of his own perfectionist tendencies with acting. It’s part of why he works with Dima so often. They share that same obsessive need to finish things correctly, to hone them, to make them balanced. Kuzy loves acting, but he also needs to be good at it, to be excellent at it, and he can’t quite repress the awareness that Sasha is excellent at it precisely because he doesn’t need it in the same way. That Sasha is the rough sketch of technique over a perfect foundation of instinct, while Kuzy is a carefully and patiently built structure of effort: more elegant, less beautiful.

Still, he knows this, also. What splashes color and life into his performances is that he wrenches them up from deep inside. It might not be, is not, obvious to someone watching casually. Kuzy chooses his parts carefully, shading the fragile honesty in amongst humor and silliness and pretended misunderstanding. You have to be looking, and looking with an eye that takes the character as whole, as flawed, as lovable, to see it.

Sasha has always seen right through him.

Kuzy wars with the desire to let this make him flinch back, be less real, more precise. He wants to stand straighter and do better for Sasha, but knows he can only actually accomplish this by relaxing into character.

It’s a strange half hour of displacement. Kuzy, nervous like he never is, steps onto the set and drops out of himself. He lets the weight of Tom settle him into the scene, forgets the inherent artifice necessary, forgets nerves, forgets Sasha’s eyes in the darkness, forgets home (all of them), forgets Evgeny Kuznetsov.

And then they cut, and he wakes up, and the delicate lines around Sasha’s eyes, the lightest press of a smile at the corner of his mouth, the approval radiating off him, slams Kuzy back into himself so hard he goes a little breathless.

He’s just staring, standing on the edge of the set and staring at Sasha, and Kuzy will absolutely never say a bad word about Dima again, because Dima grabs his arm and tows him over to the monitors and doesn’t even take the minute they’re alone to laugh at him.

Kuzy is both anticipating and dreading leaving the set, being alone with Sasha, but this turns out to be delayed longer than expected. Sasha takes a phone call while Kuzy is pretending to look over footage with Dima, and when he comes back he cheerfully announces that they’re having lunch with Nicke and Alex at the cafe down the road. Kuzy can’t decide between being relieved, at having a little extra time to gather himself, and disappointed, at the knowledge that their little bubble is possibly about to pop.

There is also the little detail that Kuzy had technically sort of lied to Alex by not mentioning Sasha coming into town, and he’s not sure whether to make up an excuse about that now or wait for Sasha to bring it up.

Nicke hugs Kuzy hello, complete with raised eyebrow and rapid scan of his demeanor. Alex smiles a little when Kuzy pulls back from hugging him, and squeezes his hand, and Kuzy takes this to mean he’s forgiven for the lie, and that Alex has probably covered for him. Kuzy smiles back, and it’s only a little like a grimace. He’s past being jealous of Alex and Sasha. Or, he wants to be and has no real reason to be, and that’s almost the same thing.

—-

They have lunch, and say goodbye to Nicke and Alex, and wander around downtown for a bit, and get groceries for dinner, and don’t talk about being married.

They head back to Kuzy’s, and Sasha insists on cooking, and Kuzy perches on one of the counters and steals bits of food. Sasha mostly lets him, and laughs, and the arch of the early evening settles almost-perfect around them, undisturbed.

This is so achingly close to what Kuzy wants: Sasha in his space, going to work, going to lunch, meeting friends, running errands, tied together and assessed as something more whole than the two of them separately. Just this, just Sasha, within reach, lives entwined, almost. Almost. Almost.

“So,” Sasha says, pushing a spatula through the mushrooms and shattering the peace with one easy flick of his wrist, “you want to get divorced all of a sudden? What, you meet someone else?”

Kuzy is startled enough that he doesn’t respond right away, and then angry enough that he speaks without thinking. “Oh, fuck you, Sema.”

Sasha looks genuinely surprised by this, mouth slightly open. Kuzy looks away, and sets his jaw, folds his arms around himself in an attempt to settle.

“I’m just joking,” Sasha says, like it’s a question.

"I was fine not talking about this," Kuzy says, half-lie, half-complaint.

"What is there to talk about?" Sasha still sounds so confused, and Kuzy clutches frantically at the shards of his anger, tries to hold it tightly enough that he can cut himself on that, not the way his chest feels tight and his heart is aching. Kuzy wants distance, suddenly, to be back with two laptops and half the world between them, but he also can’t bring himself to move away. He can’t even bring himself to keep looking down at his own knuckles clenched around the edge of the counter. He looks at the mushrooms, starting to shrink with the heat, and then up at Sasha.

He wants to not be cracked wide open, beating heart exposed, but he’s been that way for Sasha since Sasha took the trouble to look at him. It might have been better, or smarter, or hurt less, to pull back, to hide, but it doesn’t matter. That was never something he could do, to have Sasha’s eyes on him and to turn away.

“You know I’ve been in love with you since we were kids,” Kuzy says, and the words feel too small for everything, wrinkled and light like a newborn bird. “I know you don’t feel the same way. Guess no one else has affected you much, either,” he adds, not realizing how honest it is until he says it. That this, knowing there isn’t someone else, at least not someone else like he wants to be, this is why he’s been okay with them being apart for so long. It’s not, as he told himself, Sasha buried and happy in Siberia, and it’s not Kuzy old enough to let people love him without growing around them like a vine. It doesn't really mean anything, being maybe-married, but it ties them together.

In some ways, he's still that seventeen-year-old, leather jacket too big, scraped up palms, looking up at Sasha and the full moon and knowing exactly which had the stronger gravity. He's always wanted to be wrapped up in Sasha, somehow. He's always felt a little childish around him; a little like he’s falling, and not even able to care about the drop as long as Sasha is the one to pick him back up.

“No,” Sasha says, more serious than Kuzy’s ever seen him, “No, I didn’t know that.” Kuzy laughs, a small, helpless, strangled little sound. Sasha turns off the burner. Kuzy doesn’t bother to look down and see if the mushrooms are done. “You really mean that, Zhenya?”

“Of course I mean it,” Kuzy says, the words raw in his throat. Sasha is the one to look away. Kuzy thought he was ready for this, to be- not broken up with, exactly, but close.

He wasn’t ready.

“I don’t-” Sasha starts, and trails off. Kuzy wants to help him, always does when Sasha is fumbling for words. He wants to say _I know you don’t feel the same, I understand, it’s okay, it’s fine, things can go back to how they were,_ but all that comes out is,

“Please don’t leave me,” honest and devastated. And then, too fast, “as your friend, I mean. Please let me stay in your life, I don’t, I’m sorry, if-” but Sasha is cutting him off, grabbing both his hands, holding onto him so tightly it eases the pressure in his chest a little.

“Never gonna leave you,” Sasha says, soft like a lullaby. “Don’t worry about that. Breathe, okay?” And Kuzy realizes he isn’t; he’s crying a little, and his lungs feel thick with it.

Sasha moves them into the living room, sitting down on the couch and pulling Kuzy after him, fussing with Kuzy’s limbs until they’re tangled together to his satisfaction. Kuzy tucks his head under Sasha’s chin, breathes into the hollow of his throat, presses up against his heart and lets Sasha run soothing hands over his shoulders and back.

“I didn’t know,” Sasha says again, unsure and quiet, though his hands stay steady. Kuzy makes a noise and presses his face against Sasha’s skin, closes his eyes. “You’re so easy with people, Zhenya. Not like me at all. They love you, all of them.” His hand stops, stutters over the curve of Kuzy’s shoulder, settles. “Why don’t you love one of them back, instead?” Kuzy genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking, or in earnest.

“You never knew?” Kuzy asks, keeping his voice small as if there’s someone to hear him. “You never thought about it, us being married?”

“Not really,” Sasha says, and Kuzy tries to pull away. He tries, but not very hard. “No, not like that, Zhenya. That’s not what I mean.” Sasha’s hand is in his hair now, and it’s wildly unfair, and he’s not trying to pull away at all anymore. “It’s not that you’re not important to me,” Sasha says slowly. “It’s not that I don’t think about you.” He pauses, lets out a long shuddering sigh. “I guess I thought you’d outgrow me.” It’s hesitant, and so silly that Kuzy wants to laugh. To outgrow, to change course now, after almost twenty years; a sunflower deciding to turn its face from the sun.

“No,” he says instead, simple.

It’s quiet for a little, just his breath on Sasha’s skin and Sasha’s hands on his back and the weight of unspoken years settling around them.

“I didn’t know this was something you wanted,” Sasha says, and his voice is uncertain but his hands are sure. Kuzy hums a little, unwilling to pull back even far enough to look at him.

“I just want you, Sasha. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. We can work out the rest, okay?”

“Okay,” Sasha says, and pulls him in a little closer. “That’s what we’ll do, then.”

It’s quiet again, but it’s okay, it’s good, because it’s a together kind of quiet. The quiet of shared air, of thinking about each other, and near each other, of tessellating out into their own lives knowing that there is always this waiting, on the return. Just this, just them.

Just them, just Zhenya and Sasha, and the slow tendril of something new unfolding between them.


End file.
